Month: January 2023

Turkmenistan rarely makes the front page of western newspapers. Its leadership in Ashgabat advocates isolation from outsiders and rarely seeks publicity from foreign media.

Authoritarianism is deeply embedded in the country’s culture. Analysts often talk about it as rivaling that of North Korea’s closed autarkic society. Although Turkmenistan’s constitution mandates strict neutrality, its extensive natural gas reserves and strategic location bordering Afghanistan have brought it to the attention of other states in the region, along with the European Union, United States, China, and Russia.

One country stands out among others in its pursuit of a close relationship with the Central Asian state: China. Beijing is playing a dominant role in the country’s foreign relations. It’s expanding the CCP’s influence there through a series of meetings and its acceptance of state corruption. China’s dual goal in Turkmenistan is to secure its natural resources for the Chinese domestic economy and to have a major influence in Ashgabat’s regional affairs as Turkmenistan lies in a critical geopolitical location along the trade route between Asia and Europe and sits next to unstable Afghanistan, according to Paul Goble writing in the Eurasia Daily Monitor. Although the number of countries expressing a new interest in Turkmenistan is increasing, “none has done more and achieved more success than China,” he says. Beijing’s partnership with the state has expanded the communist giant’s opportunities in Central Asia and helped it gainmaccess to critical gas supplies and important transportation routes that China needs for its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Goble points out that Ashgabat is the perfect partner for Beijing. Its authoritarian elite prefer secrecy to open discussion, and like the CCP, resent criticism of its poor human rights record and unofficially-sanctioned corruption. Turkmenistan, in turn, remains silent on Beijing’s brutal repression of Muslims in Xinjiang. Turkmenistan’s rulers have avoided Moscow-dominated integration projects, including the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, giving China an opening, especially as Beijing has money to spend on infrastructure projects, according to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for Peace. Russia is not simply relinquishing its position in Central Asia to China.

Nuray Alekberli, a researcher at the Strategic Studies Consulting Company in Azerbaijan, points out that in recent weeks, “Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan have been hotly discussing the possibility of establishing a trilateral natural gas union among the three countries.” The region is simmering and in the future competition between Russia and China could become a kinetic conflict.

Turkmenistan opposes any change in international borders and thus backs Beijing on the status of Taiwan. In July 2021 the EurAsia Daily Monitor reported that Turkmenistan welcomes the securitynassistance China gives without the constraints most other countries impose. Over the last two years that relationship has grown stronger. On January 6 there was a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Turkmenistani President Serdar Berdimuhamedov. The date is significant as it marks the 31 st  anniversary of Beijing’s diplomatic recognition of Ashgabat. Salam News called the meeting a “lovefest,” with the two leaders praising each other and signing a laundry list of agreements that would seem to put them on the path to becoming allies.

Their agreements were of two primary types, according to Goble. One covered China’s expanded role in Turkmenistan’s economy and the other Beijing’s hopes that Ashgabat will be an agent for expanding its influence throughout Central Asia. He says the reasons for the first are more obvious; but those for the second are likely to be the more consequential.

China agreed to build a fourth pipeline eastward and Chinese investors will pour money into the economy to support new infrastructure projects covering several economic sectors. In return Ashgabat will increase its sales of gas to China. The agreements indicate that China will likely have an expanded presence in Ashgabat and along the Afghan border. China is not only pressing for expanded economic ties, but also cultural and educational ones to further cement the bilateral relationship.

“The two presidents agreed on three steps that will likely have an enormous impact far beyond Turkmenistan’s borders. First, they agreed that China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Turkmenistan’s New Silk Road initiative should be integrated, something that will expand Beijing’s ability to export goods westward through Turkmenistan via the Caspian Sea to the Caucasus and onward to Europe. Second, they indicated that this east-west route has priority over any other, including the north-south corridor that Russia and Iran are keenly interested in, but that it would not be developed in a way that would preclude others from investing in such a route. And third, they agreed that Turkmenistan will take the lead in organizing a summit meeting for the five Central Asian countries and China, a Chinese “5+1” arrangement that is effectively a rebuff to Russia’s “5+1” plans,” says Goble.

Russian commentators have downplayed China’s influence and activities by casting Moscow as another strategic partner of Turkmenistan. The locus of power, however, has shifted toward Beijing and the money it can provide the country. It appears that any previous “division of labor” between China and Russia is not longer relevant to the Central Asian state and that a new security arrangement is coming into focus. Moscow’s war in Ukraine constrains it from moving troops into the region. Eventually the war will end and Putin and Xi will need to come to an agreement over Central Asia.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

The Tawang Sector may not be a familiar geographic designation recognized by most people in the West, but it is an important location at the center of the clash between India and China high in the Himalayan Arunchal Pradesh. Last month on December 9, the PLA and Indian armies clashed there along the Line of Actual Control (LAC). Forty-eight hours later commanders from both sides met to restore peace despite their recently injured troops. It marked the first major skirmish between the two armies in the eastern sector since the Galwan Valley clash in the western sector in Eastern Ladakh on June 15, 2020, according to Amirta Jash of the Jamestown Foundation. 

After this latest skirmish India’s Defense Minister, Rajnath Singh told Parliament that “PLA troops tried to transgress the LAC in Yangtze area of Tawang Sector and unilaterally change the status quo. The Chinese attempt was contested by our troops in a firm and resolute manner.” At first it may appear as an unimportant border clash that was quickly resolved, however, Jash says it needs to be understood in the context of two key developments in relation to the ongoing standoff in Eastern Ladakh.

The first, he says, is the conduct of the 18^th iteration of Indo-U.S. joint training exercise “Yudh Abhyas 22” held near the middle sector of the LAC November 15 to December 3. China opposed the joint military exercise claiming that it “violated the spirit of relevant agreements signed by China and India in 1993 and 1996, and does not help build bilateral trust.” The second incident in question was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Arunachal Pradesh on November 19 to inaugurate the Donyi Polo Airport in Itanagar. The region is becoming more politically sensitive as engineering advances and other technologies have emerged in recent years that make it possible to build a “super dam” at the confluence of two important river systems at the top of the Himalayas. The Chinese government is developing plans to create a dam ten times larger than the Three Gorges project in China. It would be capable of controlling the flow of water across the entire Indian subcontinent. To date five buffer zones exist in the region. None include Tawang. 

It is reasonable to ask, says Jash, if the clash at Tawang is a sign of another “standoff”  in the making in the eastern sector or something more? The disputed McMahon Line, declared official after the 1962 China-India border war, is not valid according to China, and as it is viewed as an “imperial legacy,” that is “illegal,” and “unacceptable.” Yet in 1960 Beijing technically accepted the McMahon Line as the basis for settling its border dispute with Myanmar. Some analysts are asking why is there a discrepancy in Beijing, with one part of the line acknowledged as valid but not Tawang. It turns out that Tawang is the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and serves as an important Tibetan Buddhist pilgrimage center. This provides China with the justification to claim the Aranachal Pradesh as a 34,749 square mile extension of South Tibet.  

China Daily, as far back as 2006, quoted its Ambassador to India, Sun Yuxi, as saying that “in our position, the whole of what you call the state of Arunachal Pradesh is Chinese territory and Tawang (district) is only one place in it and we are claiming all of that – that’s our position.” Today, the once frozen land filled with valuable resources to be claimed by its owner, is in play. Chinese officials point  repeatedly to the argument that the area has been a part of China’s territory since the ancient times and that its Chinese ethnic minorities such as the Moinba and Tibetan ethnic groups have lived and worked in this area for a long time. India has similar historic claims.

 Xi Jinping has stated, according to Jash, that China “will never allow any people, organization or political party to split any part of Chinese territory from the country at any time, in any form.” He calls it an “uncompromising attitude,” and argues that the recent clash at Tawang should be seen in the context of China’s increasing attempts to revive, legitimize and reinforce its sovereignty claims. 

The US Department of Defense’s annual China Military Power Report in 2021 noted that “within disputed territory between the Tibet Autonomous Region and India’s Arunachal Pradesh state in the eastern sector of the LAC,” China has built a 100-home civilian hamlet. Such practices align with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s call to the Tibetan herdsmen to “put down roots in the border area” in order to protect “Chinese territory.” China is also ramping up construction of railways and other infrastructure capabilities in the region that could provide logistical supply support to potential troop movements into the region in the future. China has a history of viewing the world in terms of generational plans unlike the West. With India overtaking China as the most populous nation in the world this year, Beijing could decide it needs to take the region by force to offset the change in power. Controlling the Himalayan highlands would enable China one day to build a super dam capable of flooding farmland or causing drought in the Indian subcontinent. Control of the Tawang Sector is about more than a simple 48-hour border clash.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Photo: Pixabay

Many Russian leaders firmly believe that Western capitalist nations are intent on seeing Russia deconstructed to resemble a small principality than a strong nation-state run more closely by its authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin.

“Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev’s recent tirade against the West, as well as his insistence that Western governments are the tools of major capitalist groups and that the West wants to reduce Russia to the size of 15^th-century Muscovy has attracted enormous attention as an indication of prevailing attitudes in the Kremlin and possible plans for even greater self-isolation and more aggression against Russia’s neighbors,” says Paul Goble of the Jamestown Foundation.

In Patrushev’s Argumenty i fakty interview earlier this week he became the first senior Russian leader in decades to openly refer to the ethnically Ukrainian population living in the Russian Far East. It is a relatively unknown population problem Putin previously considered resolved.  It may indicate that Russia is newly concerned about their allegiance to Russia. Patrushev, according to Goble, noted that “in the southern parts of the Far East, given the large share of those who resettled there already during the times of [tsarist prime minister Pyotr] Stolypin, a significant number of residents consider the culture of the Ukrainian people to be their native one.” 

Ukrainians view these communities as key outposts of Ukrainian civilization. Goble says they often are referred as “wedges,” with the one in the Far East between Vladivostok, Vostok and Khabarovsk being the “green” wedge and others such as those along the Russian-Kazakhstani border and in the Kuban being the “blue” and “crimson” wedges. In recent decades Moscow has employed harsh measures to suppress these communities. Yet it is only in the last eight years that more has emerged in the Russian media about the plight of these groups. The publication Russian7.ru recently reported that “in the post-Soviet period, the number of Ukrainians in the Siberian population has significantly contracted in all regions,” especially in the north but also in the Far East more generally. Since 1989, the deaths, departures, and assimilation of Ukrainians accounts for the two-thirds decrease in the ethnic population in the Chita Oblast. Russia7.ru says that only about half as many in Irkutsk, Buryatia, Sakha, Krasnoyarsk Krai and Kemerovo Oblast. Goble points out that in acknowledging that the number of ethnic Russians across the Far East has fallen by more than 50 percent, “Russian outlets unintentionally call attention to the critical role ethnic Ukrainians have played east of the Urals in the past and the ways in which they continue to play a role to this day.”

Goble cites three developments over the past several years have given the Kremlin new cause for concern regarding the Ukrainian “wedges” inside its current borders. He argues that many Moscow writers saw the resistance to the central government in Khabarovsk as a reflection of the Ukrainian background of the population in that Far Eastern republic. The Ukrainian government, he adds, has also  increasingly called attention to these Ukrainian areas. Kyiv has enraged political leaders in Moscow who have long claimed the right to intervene on behalf of ethnic Russians while refusing to accept when anyone else does the same regarding other ethnicities in Russia. 

Historically Russia is sensitive to past incursions on both its east and western borders. Over a century ago in its Far Eastern region it was attacks by Japan along with some Western countries. More recently Moscow claims some Ukrainian officials are discussing the potential of a “re-Ukrainization” of the region. Analysts suggest that this sets off alarms for Putin when anyone mentions these “green wedges.”  

Ukrainian writers, adds Goble, have begun to talk about other “wedges” inside the Russian Federation, too. Analysts suggest that Moscow may be concerned about domestic threats elsewhere in Russia from Ukrainian-related populations. The two wedges that have attracted the most attention, first in Ukraine and then in Moscow, are the Kuban and the Ukrainian communities along the Russian-Kazakhstani border, Goble says. Many in Ukraine want Kuban back as it once was Ukrainian. The second community one hundred years ago also had a large Ukrainian population. 

Today, Putin views that group as fomenting anti-Russian attitudes as far away as Kazakhstan. It has the potential to halt any future plans Russia has for reabsorbing Kazakhstan back into the Russian Federation. The war in Ukraine has many complications with far reaching consequences. Ukrainian diaspora are only one concern of the Kremlin’s today. It may turn out that Putin’s special military operation turns into a long war that spreads across more national borders as the small fires appear to be reigniting and are difficult to extinguish although in some cases a hundred years has passed.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

Military threats will not diminish in 2023. Although Congress has provided additional funds to the initial request from the White House, the heavy cost of deterring aggression will require fair contributions from U.S. allies across the planet.

Some have risen to the challenge, while others have not. As this column has not previously, Japan has hiked his defense spending.  If Tokyo’s planned additions go through, it will provide the third largest arms budget on the planet. U.S. Secretary of Defense Austin praised Japan’s move, reflected in its National Defense strategy. “We support Japan’s decision to acquire new capabilities that strengthen regional deterrence, including counterstrike capabilities.  We also endorse Japan’s decision to increase substantially its defense spending and reach two percent of   GDP in 2027, and to improve the jointness and interoperability of its Self-Defense Forces through the creation of a permanent joint operational headquarters.  The Alliance remains the cornerstone of peace and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific, and the United States is committed to working with Japan in support of the goals enshrined in both countries’ strategies.”

Another key friend has not followed suit.  Despite its prosperous economy, Germany continues to underfund its military, depending on the U.S. and other NATO nations to take up the slack.  The armed forces publication Stars and Stripes reports that Germany will (again) fail to meet a NATO guideline of spending 2% of gross domestic product on its military next year. The shortfall will also continue “…from 2026 onward, according to an analysis quoted in local media on Monday…Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht recently revised the target to 2% of GDP ‘on average in the next five years,’potentially angering Germany’s allies who have long complained the government in Berlin isn’t pulling its weight militarily. “The 2% target is receding into the distant future despite €100 billion in special funds, and even necessary procurements in the short term are not progressing,” the Rheinische Post newspaper quoted a study by the IW economic research institute as saying.”

Unfortunately for U.S. taxpayers, Berlin is not alone in its decision. Research from Forces.net finds that  “The number of NATO nations meeting or exceeding the alliance’s spending target has continued to fall…The UK is one of only eight nations out of 30 believed to be hitting the target and remains fourth in the list of proportional spending.” NATO members are supposed to spend 2% of their gross domestic product on defense spending. Only about a third of the alliance’s members meet that figure.

Despite the shortfall, NATO continues to be a bulwark against Russian aggression, a model the U.S. seeks to emulate in the Indo-Pacific region.  The concept is beginning to progress.

Along with Japan, Australia has committed to increasing its military resources. In March, The Australian Government issued a statement noting “As part of our plan for a stronger future, the Morrison Government’s 2022-23 Budget continues its record investment in Australia’s national security by building Defence capability and creating jobs, boosting Australia’s cyber resilience, supporting Australia’s sovereign Defence industry and improving the lives of Defence Force members, veterans and their families. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government’s investments in Australia’s national security spanned air, land, sea, space and cyber capabilities.”

In September, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense also announced its own significant increase in defense spending. The hike amounted to a 4.6% hike.

While the Japanese, Australian and South Korean increases are welcomed in Washington, the goal to establish a Pacific version of NATO remains unfulfilled. China’s increased aggression, North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, and   Russia’s growing naval presence all indicate significant difficulties ahead.

Illustration: NATO HQ (NATO photo)

There is growing concern that China’s purchase of American farmland represents a growing economic and security threat.

There may be a lot more than just crops being planted in the purchased plots. According to U.S. Military News China’s Fufeng Group’s planned purchase in North Dakota is on a 370-acre plot of land located about 12 miles from the Grand Forks Air Force Base. “The U.S. Air Force base is home to some of the top U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. The base is home to 319th Reconnaissance Wing, which is one of the major operators of the RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles. The base will also host a new space networking center which will help facilitate U.S. military communications across the globe.”

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) along with a number of others have demanded answers from the U.S. Secretaries of Defense, Agriculture and Treasury about the transaction  by the Chinese-based manufacturer with close links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP.)

According to Gimenez, the location is ideally suited to closely monitor and intercept military activity.  He states that Beijing will be able to perpetrate espionage, including actions and activities carried out under commercial cover or auspices.

 Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA) and Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) have led a group of GOP representatives in outlining concern over the issue.  They have communicated their concern to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack requesting information about USDA’s process for compiling data and reporting on foreign purchases of U.S. agricultural land. Foreign ownership of domestic agricultural land has risen sharply in recent years, with Chinese land holdings alone increasing from 13,720 acres to 352,140 acres between 2010 and 2020.

Newhouse states that “Over the last decade—and continuing today—we have witnessed the People’s Republic of China invest trillions of dollars throughout the Middle East, Indo-Pacific, South America, and Africa as part of their Belts and Roads Initiative. Now, they’re purchasing U.S. agricultural assets as a national priority for the PRC. This poses an immediate threat to U.S. national security and food security.” 

All foreign holdings of U.S. agricultural land have increased by an average of 2.3 million acres per year between 2015 and 2020. At least 74 percent of these foreign holdings originate from countries with which the United States has friendly relations. However, in all foreign holding cases – potentially concerning or otherwise –information appears to be largely limited to the reporting companies required under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act (AFIDA). This legislation, enacted in 1978, only requires foreign persons who buy, sell, or gain interest in U.S. agricultural land to disclose their holdings and transactions to USDA directly or to the Farm Service Agency county office where the land is located; the bill does not require details related to a company’s ownership structure or investment intentions.

In a similar vein, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and supportive legislators have proposed legislation to restrict foreign purchases of agricultural land in their state. The plan creates a new board, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States – South Dakota (CFIUS-SD), which will investigate proposed purchases of ag land by foreign interests and recommend either approval or denial to the Governor.

“With this new process, we will be able to prevent nations who hate us – like Communist China – from buying up our state’s agriculture land. We cannot allow the Chinese Communist Party to continue to buy up our nation’s food supply, so South Dakota will lead the charge on this vital national security issue…” With vital national security resources like Ellsworth Air Force Base, we cannot afford for our enemies to purchase land in South Dakota,” adds Representative-elect Gary Cammack.

Illustration: Pixabay

The evidence of President Biden’s corrupt ties to China continues to mount.

The discovery of sensitive national security documents placed by Joe Biden in a university center with major financial ties to China has made an intensive investigation of the 46^th president’s financial  ties to America’s chief adversary a matter of urgent necessity.

The National Legal and Policy Center is filing Freedom of Information Requests with the Department of Justice and the National Archives to determine how approximately a dozen classified documents and other presidential records of the Obama-Biden Administration have been stored at the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C. The Biden Center is a think tank funded by the University of Pennsylvania, which has received over $60 million in donations from Chinese entities, of which approximately $22 million is anonymous.

The document issue is, of course, not the first questions raised about Biden ties to China.  In September, House Committee on Oversight and Reform Ranking Member James Comer (R-Ky.) today is pressing Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for information about the Biden family selling American natural gas to China in 2017 and Joe Biden’s involvement. Documents and communications obtained by Committee Republicans reveal Joe Biden was involved in the arrangement as a business partner, had office space, and may have benefitted financially from his family’s transaction selling American energy to a Chinese business closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.

In November, that same Committee’s members also revealed evidence of President Biden’s involvement in his family business schemes and several federal crimes that may have been committed by members of the President’s family. During his remarks, Ranking Member Comer pointed to documents, communications, and information revealing the extent of the Biden family’s influence peddling to enrich themselves to the detriment of U.S. interests. Comer emphasized that the evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars and influence.

On the Senate side,  Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley is calling on the FBI to produce specific records in its possession indicating potential criminal activity in the Biden family’s foreign business deals. It remains unclear whether those FBI records, which have been reviewed by Grassley’s investigative staff, have been shared with the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden. Since first raising concern about bias by senior leadership and a double standard by the FBI in politically sensitive investigations, numerous whistleblowers have made legally protected disclosures substantiating these concerns. “Notably, the Justice Department and FBI have not disputed the accuracy of the allegations that I have made public since May 31, 2022. The Justice Department’s and FBI’s continued silence on these matters is deafening and further erodes their credibility.  

Grassley revealed a contract, signed by Hunter and James Biden and three other business associates. The contract was part of an arrangement designed to funnel $5 million from the Chinese communist government-connected CEFC to Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president, according to an FBI interview summary of Tony Bobulinski. But other records held by the FBI reveal frustration by the Bidens about CEFC’s payment being elayed. Records previously released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) show James and Hunter Biden ultimately profited from a $5 million payment from a company connected to CEFC via a separate arrangement.

Documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them. It remains unclear whether the FBI took appropriate steps to follow up on this information or passed it to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office.

Illustration: Pixabay

Ten years ago, most demographers studying global population trends failed to pay close attention to what was occurring inside the world’s two most populous nations, India and China. Few analysts  recognized that both nations were on a highly destructive path that would eventually lead to the demise of their economies and cultures. One of the states recognized the situation in time to reverse its social policies; the other did not acknowledge the trend. India’s population curve is about 25 years behind China’s. Mumbai recognized it and made the decision to vacate its family planning policies in time to save the country. China did not and today is facing a grave situation that is irreparable. 

“With this historical turn, China has entered a long and irreversible process of population decline, the first time in China and the world’s history,” according to Wang Feng, a sociology professor at the University of California. The situation in China is so severe that Wang and other researchers point out that in less than 80 years China’s population could be reduced by 45%. China will become unrecognizable to the world. Although China’s population in 2021 increased by 480,000, the United nations predicts it will begin its decline this year as India takes over as the world’s most populous nation. According to UN population experts, by 2050 China will lose 109 million. 

Covid sped up the process and continues to impact predictions. Forecasts about the size and speed of the decline have tripled since 2019. Last year’s fertility rate in China was well below the OECD’s standard of 2.1 births required to maintain a stable population. Of the 10 most populous nations in the world, China’s rate of 1.18 was the lowest. Even if every woman in China, throughout her entire child-bearing years, had as many children as physically possible, China cannot make up the deficit create by CCP policies.  

Chinese President Xi Jinping assumed power over a decade ago, during a period when the narrative depicted China as a land so filled with people that it required severe family planning measures to limit the growth of its population, or it would face starvation. Without the population control programs in place from 1980-2015, leaders believed China would be unable to produce enough food to feed itself in the future. India was on a similar path but soon recognized the fallacy of the argument in time to remedy their situation. It can recover. China has failed and is experiencing a terminal decline that will change the economy for the next 100 years. The Chinese people are paying the price for the CCP’s failed policies. The National Health Commission in Beijing acknowledges that the country can expect to see the decline begin as early as next year.

India’s population also is greying, but at a much slower rate, which will allow it to recover. Farah Master, writing in Reuters, points out that “Google Trends show a 15% year-on-year increase in searches for baby bottles in 2022” in India and searches for cribs increased almost five-fold. Baby stroller searches online in China dropped last year by 17% and are down 41% since 2018. More dire yet is that searches on China’s Baidu indicates that searches for elder-case exploded by eight-fold in 2022. 

Demographer Yi Fuxian expects China’s over 65 population will be close to 37% in 2050. This is a dramatic increase from last year when it was only 14%. Even that number represents an increase of 9% over 1980 numbers. Yi says that the declining birth rate means that “Rapid aging is slowing China’s economy, reducing revenues, and increasing government debt… China is getting old before it gets rich.” That puts Xi Jinping in a tough position. CCP policies encouraging couples to have additional children have rendered few positive results. Consumer prices, along with the cost of child-rearing in cities, remains high. There is also a shortage of middle-class housing and a younger population uninterested in sacrificing their lifestyle to raise a large family. Many in Shanghai and Beijing are foregoing children altogether. The only way for China to increase its numbers is to acquire new citizens that resemble the native population. Xi will have a difficult time attracting young women from other countries in Asia to move to China. His legacy may be one he never intended: the fall of the CCP.

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Illustration: Pixabay

As the US-China relationship continues to deteriorate intelligence and military analysts in the Washington, DC area are asking if 2023 will mark the start of a new Cold War or heat up one almost forgotten in the West from an earlier century? They are voicing their concerns in closed circles, sharing their thoughts only with the few who are not Chinese apologists inside the Biden Administration. With the war in Ukraine holding the world’s attention for almost a year, some are questioning if the distraction will provide China enough leeway to act up in Asia without much pushback from the United States. Others, however, are suggesting that cracks are emerging among players in China’s domestic economy and the political sphere containing Xi Jinping’s cadre of loyal followers in the CCP leadership. Could they successfully check him from making more aggressive moves this year? The reality is that, like the weatherman delivering the evening report, there is a 50-50 chance the analysts are correct about the conditions that will exist in the bilateral relationship tomorrow. 

Robert Daly, Director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States and Rui Zhong, of the Wilson Center, suggest this week that the best policy is for the Biden Administration to “keep cool” when it comes to China. It appears the president’s men in the White House, however, intend to continue denying that it relishes a new cold war with China, although it is prepping for one. Sanctions imposed on China’s advanced semiconductor industry by the Commerce Department last October will take time to impact the country’s military computing and artificial intelligence capabilities and its increasingly harsh surveillance state. But sanctions do suggest at least some in Washington are willing to force China to look elsewhere to obtain the technologies needed by its medical researchers, supply chain managers, communications specialists, and a host of other fields relying on American technology. Daly and Rui argue that this is evidence that Washington’s strategy is to “hamper China’s further economic and technological development for the sake of security [and] is a clear indicator of cold war conditions.” Military analysts suggest that China is quite capable of withstanding the impact of sanctions and has planned “work arounds” to negate its effect.

Although policymakers in Beijing are intent on isolating the state from Western influences, the CCP leadership has yet to characterize the bilateral relationship as one of fierce competition or diametrically opposed ideologies. Daly and Rui argue that both capitals are “failing to manage their relations within a realistic framework” and that it “matters not only to national leaders, but also to the corporations, communities, college and universities, and other institutions that have played major roles in Sino-US interaction over the past 40 years.”

What will happen in 2023? The Wilson Center argues there are several things to watch in the coming months. Many states are wavering between the two superpower camps. This may be the year that a choice is forced on them. If the new cold war is played out in the realm of technology and geoeconomics and China surpasses the United States, the world could see a shifting global economic order that favors the Chinese viewpoint. Beijing is pushing for a larger international role in global rulemaking. It also appeals to the global south who do not oppose the idea of absolute sovereignty, non-interference, and a more pluralistic international discourse that is rejected in the more advanced Western democracies. Xi Jinping’s Global Development Initiative (GDI) and Global Security Initiative (GSI), according to Daly and Rui, are so vague as to be “nearly non-existent” yet many developing countries are considering signing on as they did with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). One political analyst specializing in West Africa notes countries need the money Beijing offers and they are delighted that China doesn’t care about human rights, corruption, or other systemic abuses that prevent the United States from liberally allocating funds. If Washington remains the dominant player, the set of rules, beliefs, norms, and global economic order could remain the same. Many question if Biden Administration officials have the gravitas to make the calls needed to secure a stable, Western-led, international order in the future in a cold war environment. Although a start, a few sanctions that can be bypassed are not sufficient to check China’s aggressive behavior in 2023. Too few are studying Chinese history or reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. Perhaps Winston Churchill said it best: “The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”

Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.

Photo: Airmen assigned to an airborne brigade of the PLA Air Force queue up for boarding during a parachuting training exercise in late December, 2022. (eng.chinamil.com.cn/Photo by Ma Pengfei)